The Iron Age of Comics
Episodes
Bone: The Great Cow Race & Eyes of the Storm
18 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We continue our way through Jeff Smith’s all-ages comedic fantasy epic, Bone. Picking up where the first volume, “Out from Boneville,” left off,...
Thunderbolts: Marvel's Most Wanted
04 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley's 1997 launch Thunderbolts had a killer high concept: what if a band of supervillains posed as heroes to con the publi...
The Usagi Yojimbo Saga — Volume Two (featuring “Grasscutter”)
18 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Revisit 17th century Japan with us and see what everyone’s favorite rabbit ronin gets up to next! The second Dark Horse omnibus includes “Grasscut...
Wonder Woman: Challenge of the Gods
04 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We revisit George Pérez’s redefinition of Wonder Woman with the second major arc, 1987’s “Challenge of the Gods.” In these pages, you’ll ge...
Crisis on Infinite Earths
21 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Worlds will live! Worlds will die! The skies will turn red, and cowboys and cavemen will fight side by side! Written by Marv Wolfman and penciled by G...
1986: The Year in Review
07 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
It was 40 years ago this month that the calendar ticked over to 1986, often heralded as one of the high points of the comic book industry—perhaps ev...
Iron Mail: Listener Q&A
17 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Iron Age boys reflect on another year of reading classic comics and three years since launching the podcast by answering YOUR questions! (Assuming...
Judge Dredd: Necropolis
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jim and Justin are know-it-all comics guys normally, but in this episode they’ll enter unfamiliar territory for them: the 22nd century milieu of bru...
The Authority (with Guest Cameron Kunzelman)
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Bryan Hitch took over as artist on WildStorm’s low-selling StormWatch title, writer Warren Ellis was inspired to ditch most of the characters a...
Moon Knight in the Iron Age
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A listener asked us some time ago if we’d consider reading some Moon Knight; instead, we read a lot of Moon Knight. We used Moon Knight Epic Collect...
PREVIEW: Fifth Week Bonus #12: Mike Mignola's Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hey, remember when they used to make official comics adaptations of major motion pictures? Hellboy auteur Mike Mignola drew one for the 1992 film Bram...
Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ghost Rider was something of an also-ran character in the 70s and 80s, so when editor-turned-writer Howard Mackie was invited to pitch a revival in 19...
Hellboy: Wake the Devil and Other Stories
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Halloween season is upon us again, so we’re revisiting our favorite horror hero, Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, in the next batch of adventures follo...
Astro City: Life in the Big City
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Following the triumph of Marvels and from the ashes of a proposed sequel that fell apart, Kurt Busiek launched Astro City with Brent Anderson on inter...
The Final Night
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
SUMMER CROSSOVER SPECTACULAR CONCLUDES! Where were you when the lights went out? Your hosts were reading DC’s 1996 crossover, The Final Night, in wh...
Zero Hour: Crisis in Time
20 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
SUMMER CROSSOVER SPECTACULAR CONTINUES! We’ve discussed tie-ins to DC’s 1994 continuity-altering crossover Zero Hour on a couple occasions so far,...
Atlantis Attacks
06 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
SUMMER CROSSOVER SPECTACULAR CONTINUES! Comic book annuals are a remnant of the newsstand distribution era, when Marvel and DC tried to get some extra...
PREVIEW: Fifth Week Bonus #11: The Rocketeer, The Shadow, and The Phantom -- Pulp Hero Films of the 1990s
30 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of Tim Burton's 1989 version of Batman, Hollywood tried to recapture its blockbuster success by fast-tracking a number of movies featuring...
Mutant Massacre
16 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
SUMMER CROSSOVER SPECTACULAR CONTINUES! Marvel’s X-titles are practically a superhero universe unto themselves, and the tradition of regular crossov...
EXTRA: A Conversation About Jim Shooter
09 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Iron Age boys share a few personal reflections about former Marvel editor-in-chief, writer, and all-around controversial comics industry figure Ji...
Invasion!
02 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
SUMMER CROSSOVER SPECTACULAR CONTINUES! Alien attacks on Earth are an almost routine occurrence in the DC Universe, but until 1988’s Invasion!, we’...
Secret Wars II
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
SUMMER CROSSOVER SPECTACULAR BEGINS! Love 'em or hate 'em, big event comics were a defining feature of the Iron Age, cramming a whole universe...
Green Lantern by Ron Marz — Part Five (featuring "Emerald Knights")
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Concluding (for now) our look at the saga of Kyle Rayner, the last of the Green Lantern Corps (for the ‘90s, at least). Just when Kyle finally think...
Grendel: Hunter Rose
21 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Many artists look back on the work they did at age nineteen and cringe, but Matt Wagner keeps returning to Grendel, expanding and refining his youthfu...
Green Lantern by Ron Marz — Part Four (featuring “Retribution”)
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In our continuing series on the early years of Kyle Rayner, our hero squares off against Fatality, a spacefaring warrior woman who wants to crush the ...
PREVIEW: Fifth Week Bonus #10: Flash Gordon (1980)
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Some people think Mike Hodges' 1980 Flash Gordon movie is cheesy trash and hate it; others think it's over-the-top hilarious and enjoy it. But...
Star Wars: Dark Empire
16 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Marvel let their license to produce Star Wars comics lapse in 1986, Return of the Jedi was three years in the rear-view mirror and it seemed poss...
Green Lantern by Ron Marz — Part Three (featuring "Hero Quest")
02 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It looks like Kyle Rayner and Donna Troy have broken up. In an effort to avoid both the consequences of his own self-sabotage and improve his approach...
Suicide Squad: Trial By Fire
19 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Take The Dirty Dozen, populate with supervillains and obscure DC characters, and plug them into Mission: Impossible-style plots. This is the recipe th...
Green Lantern by Ron Marz — Part Two (featuring “Parallax View”)
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In our continuing series on the Iron Age Green Lantern, twentysomething ‘90s dude Kyle Rayner gets a new girlfriend (Donna Troy, formerly known as W...
Spider-Man: Kraven's Last Hunt
19 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Still bummed that Kraven the Hunter’s solo film career failed to launch? We ease the pain with a look at the celebrated 1987 storyline by J.M. DeMat...
Green Lantern by Ron Marz — Part One (featuring “Emerald Twilight”)
05 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Beginning an in-depth look at the life and times of Kyle Rayner, a new Green Lantern for a new era! It’s 1994, sales on the Green Lantern comic are ...
PREVIEW: Fifth Week Bonus #9: Batman & Robin
29 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When was the last time you actually sat down to watch Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin? Jim had never seen it, and Justin hadn't seen it f...
The Dark Knight Returns
15 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s the 50th regular episode of the podcast, and to celebrate, we’re finally doing a deep dive on a comic that helped ushered in the Iron Age and...
The Flash by Mark Waid — Book Eight (featuring The Dark Flash Saga)
01 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s the final lap of our epic look at every issue of this legendary run! With Linda Park erased from history and Wally West merged with the Speed F...
Marvel Knights Black Panther: The Client / Enemy of the State
18 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti were handed creative control over some of Marvel’s B- and C-list characters in 1998, they offered the job of wr...
The Flash by Mark Waid — Book Seven (featuring “Chain Lightning”)
04 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Who is Cobalt Blue? Well, we’ll tell you, but you might not like the answer! In 1997, Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn took a 12-issue vacation from the...
Venom: From Deadly Enemy to Lethal Protector
20 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1988’s Amazing Spider-Man #300, Venom debuted as a ruthless, psychotic stalker and quickly became Spidey’s top villain. Within five years, he w...
The Flash by Mark Waid — Book Six (featuring “Hell to Pay”)
06 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Conspicuous by their absence throughout most of this run, the villains of the Rogues Gallery return to menace the Flash. But Mark Waid (and newly cred...
PREVIEW: Fifth Week Bonus #8: Creepshow by Bernie Wrightson
30 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a Patreon-exclusive episode available now, we discuss Bernie Wrightson's adaptation of the EC Comics-inspired horror anthology movie Creepshow, dir...
The Usagi Yojimbo Saga — Volume One
16 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
At the intersection of Carl Barks and Akira Kurosawa, you’ll find Usagi Yojimbo, a longrunning indie comic about a rabbit ronin in 17th-century Japa...
The Flash by Mark Waid — Book Five (featuring “Dead Heat” and “Race Against Time”)
02 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we get two epic storylines back to back. First, in “Dead Heat,” the Lightning Brigade faces the evil Savitar, who treats superspe...
Planetary
18 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What if every superhero and pulp fiction universe was condensed down into one universe, which was also the Wildstorm Universe? The Planetary team unco...
The Flash by Mark Waid — Book Four (featuring “Terminal Velocity”)
04 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s another big everything-changes-forever epic as Mark Waid hits “Terminal Velocity.” The discovery of the Speed Force as the source of supers...
Animal Man by Grant Morrison — Book Three
21 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s the part of the run you’ve been waiting for: Buddy Baker can see you! And Grant Morrison can talk to you, too. We’ve seen Animal Man establ...
The Flash by Mark Waid — Book Three (featuring “Reckless Youth”)
07 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Zoom has been defeated, Wally West has regained his top speed and put aside his insecurities about living up to Barry Allen’s legacy, and ...
PREVIEW: Fifth Week Bonus #7: DC: The New Frontier
31 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A small preview of our discussion of Darwyn Cooke's DC: The New Frontier and how you can get the rest by supporting us at patreon.com/ironageofcom...
Weapon X
17 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Barry Windsor-Smith finally reveals the secret origin of Wolverine! Well…kind of. The biweekly anthology comic Marvel Comics Presents got a shot in ...
The Flash by Mark Waid — Book Two (featuring “The Return of Barry Allen”)
03 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our look at Mark Waid’s legendary run on The Flash continues! After taking on his first major assignment as a writer, retelling Wally West’s origi...
Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D.
19 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In its original format as a 1988 six-issue prestige/bookshelf format limited series, Bob Harras and Paul Neary’s Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. was a bl...
PATREON LAUNCH ANNOUNCEMENT
12 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Want to help us get our hands on the comics we read and talk about on the show? You can now support this podcast at patreon.com/ironageofcomics!
TRAILER: The Iron Age of Comics Podcast
12 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Listen to us wherever you get your podcasts, find us on social media where the handle is @ironageofcomics, and support the show at patreon.com/ironage...
The Flash by Mark Waid — Book One (featuring “Born to Run”)
05 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Like Chris Claremont on X-Men or Frank Miller on Daredevil, Mark Waid’s work on The Flash was so additive and transformative that later creators can...
Fifth Week Bonus #6: Tarzan vs. Predator At the Earth's Core
29 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
An extra week between episodes takes us off the beaten path of our regular coverage and into a hidden dinosaur kingdom inside the hollow Earth, where ...
Batman: The Animated Series
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Fans love to argue about Batman, so why can so many of us agree that Batman: The Animated Series is one of the best interpretations of the character a...
Icon
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Milestone Media’s Icon has a pretty punchy elevator pitch: “What if Superman was a Black Republican?” But with stories by Dwayne McDuffie and pe...
The Sandman: The Doll's House
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Neil Gaiman’s complete reinvention of DC’s trademark on The Sandman is inarguably one of the most influential comics of the Iron Age…so why have...
Animal Man by Grant Morrison — Book Two
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We return to our coverage of DC’s 1989 Animal Man series—Grant Morrison’s first ongoing for the U.S. comics market—with a look at issues #10 t...
Savage Dragon
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
While many early offerings from Image Comics were deliberately designed to appeal to their popular artists’ existing fanbases, Erik Larsen took a di...
WildC.A.T.s and WildStorm Productions
06 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Superstar penciler Jim Lee adopted less revolutionary rhetoric than some of his fellow Image founders after leaving Marvel Comics, but he became one o...
Ghost World
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Daniel Clowes was writing and drawing vignettes about two cynical teenage girls in his groundbreaking comic anthology Eightball, he wasn’t sure...
Bone: Out from Boneville
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With one foot in the world of DuckTales and another in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, Jeff Smith’s Bone is so confident and assured from its very ...
Fifth Week Bonus #5: Mallrats
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Anything goes on a fifth Wednesday, so in this episode, Justin and Jim look back at a blast from their pasts — Kevin Smith's comics-reference-he...
Justice League International
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
BWA-HA-HA! Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatties may not have originally set out to turn DC’s signature superteam into a workplace sitcom, but with artist...
Squadron Supreme
03 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The story of a faux Justice League who seize control of the United States with the best of intentions only to be undone by the resulting ethical night...
Watchmen — Part Two
20 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Our continued deep dive into the comic book that defined the Iron Age begins with a lengthy appreciation of Dave Gibbons’ art and storytelling, then...
Watchmen — Part One
06 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What’s left to say about Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ novel Watchmen? Plenty, as it turns out! In our first of two episodes on the subject, we tal...
Fifth Week Bonus #4: The Saga of Crystar, Crystal Warrior
29 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This fifth Wednesday, the Iron Age boys throw a bit of a curveball by taking a look at an obscure fantasy series from the early 1980s! Designed to ser...
Hellboy: Seed of Destruction
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Artist Mike Mignola made his first foray into creator-owned work with Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, a 1994 miniseries for Dark Horse’s Legend imprin...
Deadpool #11
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When up-and-coming writer Joe Kelly got the keys to Deadpool’s first solo series, he subverted fan expectations by downplaying the character’s con...
Hawkworld
18 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Forget whatever you think you know about Hawkman! Tim Truman’s 1989 prestige format miniseries Hawkworld drew from inspirations including cop shows,...
Animal Man by Grant Morrison — Book One
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Riding the wave of comics’ “British Invasion” of the 1980s, Grant Morrison made their mark on U.S. superhero comics with the unlikely reinventio...
X-Men: The Animated Series (with Guest Cameron Kunzelman)
20 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As popular as the X-Men were in the comics industry during the Iron Age, the 1992 Saturday-morning cartoon adaptation found its way into more homes th...
Thunderbolts: Justice, Like Lightning
06 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
With the Avengers and Fantastic Four temporarily outsourced to Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee in 1997, Marvel touted the ostensibly brand-new heroes of the T...
Fifth Week Bonus #3: Spider-Man Unlimited
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The first issue of the web-slinger's quarterly fifth-week title kicked off the 1993 14-part crossover "Maximum Carnage," but Spider-Man ...
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
16 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Before they were a multimillion-dollar media and licensing franchise, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were just a funny idea that two young artists i...
Captain America: Operation Rebirth
02 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
At a time in the mid-1990s when the Avengers franchise struggled for attention against the industry-defining X-Men and Image titles, Mark Waid and Ron...
Elektra: Assassin
19 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz, at the height of their powers and industry clout, took advantage of the creative freedom offered by Marvel’s Epic...
Static: Trial by Fire and Milestone Media
05 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Thirty years ago, Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Derek Dingle, and Michael Davis founded Milestone Media to try to encourage diversity both on the comi...
Ultimate Spider-Man and the End of the Iron Age
21 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If the Iron Age begins with the Crisis/Dark Knight/Watchmen trifecta, where does it end? In this episode, we propose a turning point: Ultimate Spider-...
Marvel Knights Daredevil: Guardian Devil
07 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the late '90s, Marvel was struggling through a bankruptcy and looking for innovative ways to boost sales and find a wider audience. They turned...
Fifth Week Bonus #2: Superman: The Man of Tomorrow
31 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Another fifth week is upon us, the perfect excuse to take a quick-hit look at one of DC Comics' actual fifth-week bonuses: Superman: The Man of Tomorr...
Wonder Woman: Gods and Mortals
17 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Wonder Woman is perhaps the most iconic female character in comics and one of the few superheroes to remain in continuous publication since the Golden...
Marvels
03 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
At the height of the grim ‘n’ gritty superhero craze, Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross offered fans a nostalgic but innovative look at the superheroes of...
Batman: Year One
19 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve seen several different tellings of Batman’s origin in comics, movies, and TV since Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s 1987 masterpiece ...
Wizard: The Guide to Comics
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If you were reading comics in the ‘90s, you probably also read Wizard: a glossy magazine offering irreverent commentary along with news, interviews,...
Fifth Week Bonus #1: Upcoming Schedule
29 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
March having a fifth Wednesday in it throws off our usual "every other week" release schedule, but you can't get rid of us that easily! ...
Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn
15 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
While many of DC’s other heavy hitters were massively revamped in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Green Lantern Hal Jordan received a compara...
Peter Parker, the Spectacular Married Man
01 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Spider-Man went through a lot of changes in the Iron Age, but not even the Clone Saga had as big an impact as getting married to Mary Jane Watson. Wha...
The Man of Steel
15 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When DC decided its flagship character needed a top-to-bottom reboot for the post-Crisis era, they turned to superstar writer-artist John Byrne. The s...
Spawn and the Image Revolution
01 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1992, Todd McFarlane and his fellow Marvel superstar creators jumped ship to found Image, creating a major independent alternative to the comics in...
X-Men #1
18 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
While DC was breaking new ground with the Crisis/Dark Knight/Watchmen trifecta, Marvel entered a paradigm shift of its own with the rise of superstar ...
Crisis, Dark Knight, and Watchmen
04 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From 1985 to 1987, DC released three groundbreaking series that kicked off the Iron Age and changed comics forever: Crisis on Infinite Earths by Marv ...
Episode #0: Defining the Iron Age
04 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Have we really been living in "The Modern Age of Comics" for over three and a half decades now? Or can we identify a distinct historical age for the f...